science fiction and fantasy stories plus nerdy cultural commentary

swordplay

Author’s Note: this is the fourth and final volume in a comedic high fantasy series set in the lowest of all settings: a gigantic public restroom. If you’re interested I recommend starting with those that come first: Captain Rob Fights, Captain Rob Sinks, and Captain Rob Robs.

Captain Rob Deals

By

Blaine Arcade (in a sense)

The Fourth and Final Bathroom Break

And it was the one that broke me. Hello again. My name is Blaine Arcade; it’s a pen name of course, to protect me from people who might be disgusted and disturbed by the things I’ve done in bathrooms around the world. Three prior times I have reported my experiences and the stories that came with, so some of this information will be old to you.Continue reading →

Always a ravenous learner, Alast didn’t care much for the university town surrounding the Far-Eyed Academy. His knowledge came mostly from experience, and from books scavenged and purchased cheaply alongside other supplies. It was something he had to earn, which in itself taught him to share it with others.Continue reading →

Though the great oceanic basins of the sinks looked perfect from a distance, there were occasionally cracks in their foundation that ran all the way through, producing waterfalls down to the World Floor; it was a fall so long that, in cold weather, the water could freeze into an avalanche before melting once more and splashing against the warmer ground.Continue reading →

All those bags of tiles should’ve made an awful racket: a sound like an avalanche of polished metal. Sleep would’ve been impossible if they were anywhere other than the sound-absorbing air of the rundown house. Dianarhea had all her remaining staff, as well as every pirate, set to the task of shaking those bags over tins. Captain Rob really was out of touch with the desperation associated with rampant criminality, for he had no idea what they were all doing when he finally awoke from his long rest.Continue reading →

There was a time, when the ages didn’t yet have their names, where the akers were feared far less. The gods hadn’t finished dying yet. There was still enough divine blood in the offspring of the Custodians that they sometimes demonstrated extraordinary powers and earned their own legends. Some of them settled for extraordinary infame, happy to be relegated to the role of trickster in the tales of them to come.Continue reading →

The next couple of days were a flurry of activity the likes of which the rundown house had almost never seen. Folk don’t realize how important all the small sounds of a crowd can be to their sanity. If they are surrounded on all sides they naturally expect to hear tiny coughs, whispered jokes, obnoxious laughs, and shuffling. That was why crowds, even important ones, had never assembled inside the rundown house. It sucked all those small sounds away and made every gathering feel like a mass grave.Continue reading →

The party that hoped to crack the sugar on top with a most daring robbery did not have an easy time in the first step of their plan. It was best for them to move between levels as quietly as possible, but that became difficult when the massive chamber that acted as the main port of travel between the military wafer and the cream filling was in such chaos.Continue reading →